Business Development

S2D2 is launching a business venture to implement whole system design for thermal conversion of materials and waste.

Focus is on whole systems integration within rural and urban communities with specific applications for the following: - Process storm and insect infestation tree downage and reduce forest slash/crowding that creates the tinderbox effect in forest fire intensity

- Mobile deployment of systems to improve efficiencies, reduce transport emissions and costs, access remote areas, serve community collectives or cooperatives, provide waste management and remediation services to the US military

- Facilitate post-disaster clean up and provide heat/hot water and char for deodorization/sanitation

- Agricultural soil improvement and waste management; provision of on-site heat, hot water or electricity production

- Reclamation of industrial waste materials and conversion to reduced toxicity feedstock for new industrial materials

Closed loop systems designed around the materials conversion units have the potential to fulfill the following:

- Produce local supplies of biochar and activated charcoal for use in agricultural, industrial and remediation applications; improve performance outcomes, significantly reduce operating costs and adversities such as pollution, animal disease, excessive chemical use; land, water and farm contamination

- Provide heat, hot water or electricity for use on-site; reduce utility costs and fossil fuel use

Part Two — Sludge Eradication Technology and What We Can Do About the Growing Sludge Problem by Machaelle Small Wright Perelandra, Center for Nature Research

Early on in our investigation about the sewage sludge/’biosolids’ issue I was contacted by Loraine Green, the head of VisionQuest Enterprises, a local company that assists companies and industries in commercializing better environmental methods and technologies as well as alternative healthcare. She has spent years researching and working with scientists in the U.S. who are developing alternative technologies for safely processing sewage sludge. I asked Loraine to write a short article giving the overview of the alternatives that presently exist and that could be an alternative answer to the current sludge problem. The following is what she wrote.

The most frequently asked question we field regarding the sludge issue is, ‘If it [sewage sludge] isn’t utilized as fertilizer, then what can be done to dispose of it?’ There are technologies that already exist to safely eliminate sludge altogether. These technologies not only apply to the elimination of sludge, but virtually every kind of solid and hazardous waste man generates. These technologies fall into two categories.

1) Waste-to-energy through thermal destruction: This means of waste disposal has been under development since the 1970s. At that time, there were many technical obstacles to the commercialization of ‘thermolysis’ because materials and componentry that are available today did not exist then and due to numerous failures, projects languished. Most of the patents on these technologies expired in the mid-nineties and inspired a renewed effort for their development, in light of technical advances. Several companies are now poised to commercialize their versions of thermal destruction. There are three versions of thermal processes: pyrolysis, gasification and plasma energy pyrolysis. Pyrolysis essentially ‘bakes’ the waste at carefully controlled temperatures resulting in little or no emissions, a nontoxic residue, as well as generating a medium BTU gas that can be utilized by industrial facilities or to generate electricity. Gasification still employs oxidative combustion, similar to incineration, but because of technological advances, emissions are reduced by either combining with pyrolysis or utilizing filtration systems. And finally, plasma energy involves the creation of a super high temperature energy arc through which waste is passed and virtually disintegrated. Each of these versions has advantages and disadvantages depending upon which type of waste they are being applied to. Every county in this country should have these types of disposal facilities to handle wastewater sludge, industrial sludge, municipal solid waste and hazardous waste. Sludge is abundant and noxious and can be used for our benefit! We need you to start demanding these alternatives from your local, state and federal government. They can also significantly answer our energy needs and reduce dependence upon fossil fuels now.

2) Anaerobic or biological waste treatment: Involves the use of bacteria or enzymes that are capable of digesting sludge and even hazardous waste such as PCBs and petroleum-based chemicals. Heavy metals are utilized as food by these bacteria and converted to other substances rendering them harmless. When necessary, the bacteria or enzymes are contained and neutralized when they have completed the clean-up process. In addition to the provision of much needed alternative energy sources, the treatment of sludge also renders an increasingly precious resource—clean water. Sludge can be centrifuged before it is thermally processed to reduce the water content. That water can then be treated with ozone and other, safer filtration/treatment processes resulting in clean water that can be given back to the community.

The future is changing the way we think, the way we see, the way we hear, the way we taste, the way we smell, the way we feel, and the way we understand the world through all those senses. The future can be bright or can be dark, when looked through the present depending on if its a good or bad day for each one of us.

There is reason for today’s non-renewable to become renewable, for the abuses of today to become charities. The Sustainable Future is the bright future where resources and energy can be sought not by drilling or digging into the earth, but rather from the piles of trash we are currently burying under the soil as well as numerous other technologies that are products of human curiosity.

This Hub’s purpose is not to tell you what to think but merely to show you what is out there as an alternative to what is obsolete today. The content on this Hub will consist of Technologies for Agriculture, Water Remediation, Waste to Energy, Renewable Resources, and how a Sustainable Strategy will give resilience to World.

We are the Next Revolution!

In the history of the human race we have had great leaps forward utilizing technologies and sheer willpower to address the needs of our people in times of change. These events came to be known as the “Revolutions”, examples being the Agricultural Revolution, Industrial Revolution, and the coming of the Socialized Revolutions. The very gears of history are turned by the events and problems solved in each passing age but this age is ever more apparently urgent.

“Tommorow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” — Emerson

The Sustainable Revolution would be the next step on a road laid by the history of the world, though like the past revolutions the sustainable idea is to fix a problem generated by a past advance. The Industrial Revolution is the turning point of the last 2 centuries where in the whole of human kinds existence the human race consumes the most space and resources of any other species and thus creates the most damage. The point though is while we should care for the world that gives us life we should also hope to maintain our own safety. The more damage we do to our enviroment the more hazardous and deadly the enviroment is to the human race. The protection of our enviroment and strategic shift to sustainability should be natural, an instinct to protect ourselves and the future of our species.

Sustainable Mentors

The history of each revolution creates people who rise to the occasion with new ideas and perspectives that inform the rest of us. These people sometimes become leaders but more often than not they are just our mentors, people to guide our thinking and understanding of what we as the human race should likely do next. They willingly pursue their lives in service to the greater whole of the system. The mentors of the Sustainable Revolution are not yet fully apparent, but there are those who are emerging to push for a sustainable system to give resilience to the countries of the world. My own mentor, Loraine Green, has devoted her life to creating a sustainable world through intelligent design for a brighter future. The reasons she has devoted her life to change the world’s systems to follow an “Intelligent Design” is that most things are flawed, this is universal but when designed intelligently even if problems occur the system may recover and react quickly and efficently.

Sustainable Economy

When we think sustainability we think of the eco-movement, this draws on cleaner transportation and energy as well as helping reduce the levels of green house gases. This is all true but can we broaden our concept of Sustainability to the Economy?

Yes, it is the obvious next step. The Economy of the United States as well as most every other country on earth can be classified as a consumption or production economy. These Economic models are disastrously weak and unpredictable. The negative aspects of these economic models are simple, a Consumption Model relies completely on the population to consume at a steady but ever increasing rate. This however produces consequences of higher dependence on production economies and debt manufacturing. Americans today face enormous amounts of national debt as well as personal debt. America itself produces little compared to the pre-war and post-war America 70 years ago. This comes from higher demands than our resources can provide as well as them slowly drying up. As we shifted to a Consumption model our economy became as dependent on countries like China as a new-born is on its mother. Americans talk of “National Security” the most out of all other topics discussed in their government, yet their Economy is dependent on others to the point as if those economies failed ours would follow almost instantaneously.

This begs the question of how a “Sustainable Model” Economy can help, a Sustainable Model will focus on reinforcing our industries with concepts of renewable resources and waste remediation. These are two concepts among dozens more yet these are key, if America could reproduce all of its waste into energy and raw materials for production purposes the logical result is a drastically reduced dependence on foreign imports as well as a higher capability to sustain our own production and consumption at the same time. Economists laugh at the idea as unattainable on the News or in the Paper but the world once laughed at the Dough Boy before world war one and yet after 2 world wars and a crumbling world economy it was American open minded ideas that marched us to power. This time, it will be the world together that will change to a Sustainable Model in order to foster flourishing growth and security while changing our countries into sustainable Green societies without compromising economic prosperity.